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Brian interviewed by Loraine Alterman backstage at the University of Michigan on October 22 1966.  "He wasn't supposed to be there Saturday night.  After all he hasn't been on the road in a year and a half.  But there was Brian Wilson rehearsing his Beach Boys for their two sell-out performances in Ann Arbor. Capitol Records engineers and their sound equipment were there too, taping the shows for a possible Beach Boys live album.  Before the first show Brian rehearsed the guys....I watched Brian dashing around the auditorium to check the sound system, jumping onstage to stick his ear next to an amp to find a buzz and listening hard to the sounds to suggest improvements.  Funny that he made them run through a number like 'I Get Around' which they must have played hundreds of times. But Brian is a perfectionist and second-best just doesn't make it with him."
"I came here," he explained later "to rehearse the guys for Europe (they left Sunday on a 3-week tour without him), to record the sounds of water (this fascinates him lately), to shoot pictures of the guys along the tree lined streets, to get away from Los Angeles for a couple of days and to generally kick up some dust and really scare everybody."   Other excerpts: Asked about Smile, Brian called Van Dyke Parks "a cheerful, brilliant, talented man."  Alterman commented "While we were talking, Brian played some of the melodies he's written for Smile on the piano for me. Lovely sounding tunes-some of them he calls 'Children's songs' and they do have a charming childlike quality about them.  He describes the new songs as 'Little Musicals.'  Brian: "Smile is going to be a very good album.  This will be better than Pet Sounds.  It will have more thought lyrically in it. It's my first big lyric endeavor and it will be something different."  Brian writes a song "generally by being inspired."  By what? "Just inspired period.  Inspired to write good music."
By the way this article is accompanied by photos by Wilson Lyndsey that can be viewed on Getty Archives-they show Brian in sneakers rehearsing Bruce and the other BBs.

Good stuff. I wonder if she is still alive and taped her interviews at that time?

Wonderful stuff really, a moment in time and everything seems so optimistic and, well, innocent. Smile era Brian running the band through I Get Around (which was then only two years old…), treating the writer to some childlike new melodies he's working on…  recording water sounds… seemingly all so upbeat.

Many thanks for posting, Ian. It's like a breath of fresh air.

AND FROM WHERE I LIVE AS WELL!  Didn't know Brian was present during the Ann Arbor concerts!

Well since you don't know that than you probably aren't aware that when he got back to Los Angeles he had all his friends meet him at the airport for a famous photograph

I knew of the airport picture, but didn't know the dates matched up like that.

Is this Loraine today? Perhaps she does still have the tape.

http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Writer/loraine-alterman (http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Writer/loraine-alterman)

She later worked as an editor for rolling stone and married the actor Peter Boyle of young Frankenstein and everybody loves Raymond fame. She now blogs for huffington post.

Yes, I was kind of shocked when I Googled her.  Anyone have a rock'sbackpages subscription? Looks like she has any interesting Maha Tour interview.

Well I have a subscription and can check. But that October 1966 piece isn't there. I got it from the Detroit free press microfilm archives at the library of congress

Yes, great work. I hope someone can figure out how to contact her about that interview, it would be a kick if she had a tape of Brian auditioning those songs.

Maybe someone with BRI would have the gravitas and resources to contact her?  (hint, hint)